Talking the lingo in Rio: Chatting with your new Icelandic speaking friends about triathlon

Sharing the world with language learning. Image credit: Everaldo Coelho and YellowIcon. License: This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation.

This article is a series of language learning posts by ParaSport News. The goal is to provide sport fans some very basic sport and Paralympic vocabulary so you can talk with the world about disability sport at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio.

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A North Germanic language, Icelandic is spoken by only 330,000 people of which almost all are found in Iceland. Despite Iceland’s relatively small population, you may run into some Icelanders in Rio. The country sent a four athlete strong delegation to London. The Icelanders competed in athletics and swimming, and Jon Margeir Sverrisson picked up a gold in men’s S14 swimming for Iceland. The country’s best every Summer Games performance came in 2004 when the country’s three competitors won four medals.

General disability words:

Blinda – Blindness

MS – Multiple sclerosis

Sport specific words:

Ólympíumót fatlaðra – Paralympic Games

Triathlon specific words:

This sport makes its debut at the 2016 Summer Paralympics. With words from swimming, athletics and cycling, knowing a few terms here can take you a long way with other sports.

Þríþraut – Triathlon

Hlaup – Running

Hjólreiðar – Cycling

Sund – Swimming

Maraþonhlaup – Marathon

Bauja – Buoy

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Laura Hale is a sport journalist, specializing in Paralympic and disability sport news. Prior to helping found ParaSport-News, she spent two and a half years working as a journalist on Wikinews, a citizen journalism site. As a journalist, she has covered the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, the 2013 IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships in La Molina, the 2014 Winter Paralympics in Sochi, and a number of other sporting events. She has additional experience with Paralympic sport having worked as a Wikipedian in Residence for the Australian and Spanish Paralympic Committees.

All text copyright is property of the writers. Permission is given to sport organizations connected to articles here to republished on their own websites with appropriate author and site credit. ParaSport News is physically based at: 17 Ashford Court, Swedesboro, New Jersey 08085, USA. It is run by Spacial Anamoly, a limited liability corporation, which can be reached at sockii@spacial-anomaly.com. The editorial staff is based in Spain, and can be reached at laura@parasport-news.com